DENVER—Gov. John Hickenlooper spoke with victims' family members and others Friday about whether he should spare the life of a man convicted of ambushing and killing four people nearly 20 years ago.

Hickenlooper is weighing whether to grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap, who is scheduled to be executed in August for the 1993 slayings at a Chuck E. Cheese pizza restaurant in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

Dunlap has exhausted his guaranteed appeals, and a state judge this week ruled he could be executed the week of Aug. 18. The head of the state prison system will set the exact date.

Dunlap's lawyers say they will formally ask Hickenlooper for clemency, but they had not done so by Friday. They would not say when they planned to do so.

Dunlap, 38, was convicted in 1996 of killing four Chuck E. Cheese employees who were cleaning the restaurant after hours. Three of the victims were teenagers. Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job at the restaurant.

Hickenlooper's spokesman, Eric Brown, declined to identify the people whom the governor would speak with, but he said they included victims' families, attorneys, prosecutors, law-enforcement officers and others on all sides of the issue.

Bob Crowell, whose daughter Sylvia Crowell was one of the four killed, said this week he and his wife were scheduled to speak with Hickenlooper on Friday. Crowell didn't immediately return a call Friday but said earlier that Dunlap should not get clemency.

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Brown said the discussions would continue Saturday. He said Hickenlooper was unavailable for comment Friday.

Hickenlooper indicated in December that he was torn on the subject of the death penalty in general. "I wrestle with this, right now, on a pretty much daily basis," he said at the time.

George Brauchler, the current district attorney overseeing the prosecution of Dunlap, said this week the death penalty verdict has withstood years of court scrutiny and that Hickenlooper should not "inject himself" in the case.

"The governor need do nothing," Brauchler said Wednesday after the judge set the week of execution. Brauchler's spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call Friday.

Phil Cherner, one of Dunlap's lawyers, called Dunlap remorseful and said the defense team will continue fighting for his life.

They plan to file further appeals arguing that making a condemned inmate spend years on death row is cruel and unusual punishment and that Dunlap cannot be executed until he completes a 75-year sentence for a robbery that was handed down before his murder conviction.